Stare Wars

The project I'm recently working on is called 'Kijkstrijd' ('Stare Wars')
and evolves around the silent war in the Baarsjes (Amsterdam trouble district) between Muslimyouth (biggest population) versus YUP's that are buying the first appartments here (after being solely social housing for ages).

The idea is to let the muslimyouth and the YUP's register the 'looks' on each other with mobile phones (as the weapons in this battle) and present the outcome as visual debate (without words).

I would like to add a metalevel as an artist by documenting the process and ask myself some critical questions while registering. I live for example in a YUP appartment on the third level, so I actually 'look down' on the square with muslimyouth hanging around. And I sometimes feel like an immigrant in this predominantly muslim district.

Web2.0 applications are the most suitable media for this project. I would
like to use and reflect on media such as the YouTube Annotation tool with these mobile phone films as well as show the platform in analogue places in the district (the bakery, the halal butchers, the mobile phone shop etc) to confront the inhabitants with these stare wars and the narrative going on within the looks.